Professional degrees cost the most, but bring in the highest salaries: Stats Canada

Professional degree programs are the most expensive to enrol in, according to figures released by Statistics Canada Wednesday.

The data showed undergraduate dentistry students pay the most per year at $21,717, with medicine in second at $14,162, law at $12,388 and optometry at $11,236. However, those four programs had the highest median income two years post grad.

Masters of business administration remain the most expensive graduate programs with the average cost of an executive MBA sitting $56,328 and a regular MBA costing studetns $27,397.

B.C. tuition fees go up

Tuition fees at B.C. postsecondary institutions edged up this year, even as the national average went down.

Figures released Wednesday by Statistics Canada showed that B.C. tuition went up by two per cent for undergraduate students and by 1.3 per cent for grad students. In contrast, nationwide fees went down 5.3 per cent for undergrads and 4.5 per cent for graduate studies, largely due to a nearly 10 per cent decrease in Ontario tuition fees.

Despite this, B.C. has cheaper degree programs than many provinces. For example, a year of humanities courses costs $5,178 in B.C. while costing $6,580 in Saskatchewan and $7,409 in New Brunswick. The national average is $5,542.